Normally I connect via PPPoE - but my dsl company (sbc/yahoo) has had major problems last couple of days - gives me IP address and I can ping around, but it doesn't load pages completely. No problem - I have a 56k dialup account just for these such occasions. So I used the wizard to add it as a connection. Took down the pretty much useless PPPoE and brough up the standard PPP. Got me an IP address, but I couldn't ping anywhere. I could get it to work by turning off the PPPoE at boot and turning on the dialup modem at boot - but then, when looking at the network control panel - it shows both connections as being down. I won't attach it because not everyone wants to see it - but you can view it at See http://homepage.mac.com/mpeters/misc/fc2_network.png ppp0 is the dsl configuration eth2 is the onboard nvidia nic, which is not is use eth1 is a tulip pci nic, which is what is attached to the dsl modem eth0 is the onboard 3com nic (a7n8x deluxe), which is connected to my lan ppp1 is a us robotics pci hardware modem. The panel shows both ppp connections inactive - yet the us robotics dialup modem is in fact active and working, only ifconfig reports it as ppp0 and not ppp1 ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol inet addr:216.127.178.141 P-t-P:216.127.176.3 Mask:255.255.255.255 UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1514 Metric:1 RX packets:7293 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:6383 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 RX bytes:7006290 (6.6 Mb) TX bytes:415417 (405.6 Kb) Anyway - there seems to a problem with how the network control panel gets its information. And it also is not as easy to change which interface is used as the default route when you need to. While I generally despise Windows, I must confess they make it easier to deal with when you need to bring down your interface that is the default route and bring up another one that is to become the default route. I'm not sure what components need the bug reports filed - but if the second ppp interface is listed as ppp1 in the network configuration control panel, then it should come up as ppp1 even if ppp0 isn't active. I suspect that is why it currently shows it as inactive even though it is active (hence you getting this e-mail) I also think that when a default route interface is brought down, that it should be easier for the OS to bring up a new connection as the default route. If I am "doing it wrong" from the gui, then how to do it right needs to be better defined in the network control panels/wizards (which btw need to be consolidated into a single tool imho) If there is any clarification I need to do, please request. -- Cheap Linux CD's - http://mpeters.us/linux/
